How Does Robotic Process Automation Work In The Healthcare Industry
Do you have too many things to do and too little time to do them? This is a common concern faced by many healthcare practices across the country. When that’s the case, healthcare robotic process automation can help. Although the term can sound technology-focused, you will find that a successful automation system is focused on the people and operational processes surrounding this technology.
Robotic process automation (RPA) is concerned with creating robots that can imitate human behavior. These robots can complete a series of predefined actions, such as generating automatic responses, scanning documents for keywords, as well as withdraw the required information from a report. This can lighten the workload of employees as well as prevent clinical burnout.
This article shares more about how robotic process automation can benefit the healthcare industry.
Understanding the Need for Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
As your practice grows, you will find more extensive sets of data and an increasing number of tasks to deal with. Instead of burdening your already busy employees with these tasks, consider implementing RPA.
Some common issues you may face include the turnaround time between submitting a claim and receiving payment. When this happens, you may have to wade through the data system numerous times to extract various documents. In addition, the margin for human error increases when repetitive tasks are involved.
Although it has yet to become widespread in healthcare settings, the benefits you stand to reap from automating your processes are numerous. RPA can assist with updating medical records, scheduling appointments, simplifying the building process, and many more. The best part is that RPA is relatively low cost to adopt, and only a short turnaround time is required. You will find that it can work right alongside your healthcare practice’s existing systems without causing significant disruption.
Applications of Robotic Process Automation in a Healthcare Setting
Below is a non-exhaustive list of ways in which you can adopt RPA within a clinical setting:
Schedule Patient Appointments
Even if you operate within a clinically integrated network, RPA can help to allocate each new patient request to the most appropriate provider. When patients fill their data online, RPA technology quickly scans it, identifies the keywords, and directs the request to the most appropriate work queue. This tech bases keywords on diagnosis, location, and insurance provider. It minimizes the waiting time for patients to get an appointment and improves efficiency across healthcare providers.
Simplify the Billing and Claims Process
There’s no denying that billing can be one of the most complicated processes a healthcare provider has to deal with. This is especially true if you have a combination of patients paying out of pocket and those making claims via their insurance providers.
Sorting out these claims manually can open up a large margin for error besides taking up valuable time and, in some cases, can even impact cash flow. Allowing robotic automation to sort out these claims can help to streamline and speed up the entire process, reducing the number of errors that can occur.
Improve the Patient Cycle
From a patient’s first diagnosis to their subsequent treatments, a large amount of data is collected. RPA can help organize, extract and optimize this data more efficiently, especially when integrated with your patient data system. Healthcare providers can easily access and generate actionable insights from this clinical data. This will allow them to make the most accurate diagnoses and suitable patient treatment recommendations.
Improve Data Management Processes
When the need for manual input is reduced or eliminated, there is less margin for error throughout the healthcare cycle. The entire data management process can function more efficiently, and one of the improvements you can expect includes eliminating repetitive data entries. This makes it much easier for healthcare providers to draw out the historical health records of each patient, compare them with their current prognosis, and make a well-informed decision going forward.
Developing and Implementing Healthcare Robotic Process Automation
If you are keen to get started with robotic process automation in healthcare for your practice, below is the process you will need to follow:
Planning and Development
The first step would be to identify the tasks you can automate. You should do this in light of their compatibility with your processes and systems. From here, you will start to develop automated workflows and identify and address any possible risks along the way.
Testing
Once you establish a preliminary workflow, it’s time to try it out. Throughout this process, you will need to monitor your automated processors intensively. Once you’ve identified any bugs or issues, the technology can be scaled or deployed to meet your needs.
Support and Maintenance
Regular support and maintenance remain crucial even after successfully launching RPA in healthcare within your practice. Doing this will ensure that you can identify potential problems and resolve them immediately. You should also keep on top of software updates.
Throughout the entire process, you will need a strong team behind you. First of all, this should include team members who are directly involved with the processes that are to be automated. They will be able to share their insights on why these processes are unproductive and what can be done to improve them. These insights can open up lots of possibilities for operational improvement.
Benefits of Healthcare Robotic Process Automation
Implementing RPA in your healthcare practice comes with numerous benefits for all stakeholders. Let’s take a closer look at some of them:
Happier and More Productive Employees
When your employees do not have to spend time tending to repetitive tasks, this frees up their time to engage in more fulfilling work. The overall result is happier and more productive employees, introducing a pleasant atmosphere in the workplace.
Resource Optimization and Cost Reduction
When several key processes are automated, you will not have to spend as much time on them as you did before. If everything goes right, you will need to draw out the data when required, with no other effort. This way, you can accelerate several vital processes and reduce the number of resources required to complete these tasks.
Improved Accuracy
Inevitably, when handling repetitive tasks days, there will be a margin for human error. This is hard to eliminate, as human employees can tire after doing the same thing for hours. When these processes are automated, you can improve the accuracy of data. This will allow for more efficient management of data as well as better decision-making.
Start Automating Your Healthcare Processes with Vicert
Are you looking to start robotic process automation within your healthcare practice? If so, let our professional team at Vicert help you develop and implement the most suitable solution for your needs. We will sit down with your team to understand the concerns and issues faced in your clinical setting before recommending a suitable approach.
If you want to onboard your practice with telehealth services or better manage your data simultaneously, feel free to check out our comprehensive range of services. We can also assist you with developing a health cloud solution or implementing a data quality management solution. Regardless of your unique needs, we can leverage our decades of experience developing digital health solutions to help you reach your goals.
